Robert Fitzgerald
DEDECORA TEMPORUM
(Written in 1968)
Here is the armor, tons and tons,
Each by its own assembly line
Conveyed over old cobblestones
To make free gentlemen resign.
Lord, save us, or we drown.
This cry comes from a long way down.
Here is the horrorshow, record runs,
Here is a plausible genial swine
Teaching our longing daughters and sons
That Eros' lash is far from fine.
Lord, save us, or we drown .
This cry comes from a long way down .
Here is the addlepate, everyone's,
Here is the vanity, yours and mine,
Delivering gardenlands to guns
And vision to the low malign.
Lord, save us, or we drown.
This cry comes from a long way down .
Robert Fitzgerald, poet and translator, is Boylston Professor of Rhetoric,
Emeritus, at Harvard University. He received the Bollingen Prize in 1961 for
his translation
of
the
Odyssey.
